Recent comments by U.S. officials on the threat posed by “radicalized” American Muslims are troubling, both for their domestic and international implications. Attorney General Eric Holder states that “the threat has changed … to worrying about people in the United States, American citizens — raised here, born here, and who for whatever reason, have decided that they are going to become radicalized and take up arms against the nation in which they were born.” The situation is critical enough to compel incoming head of the House Committee on Homeland Security Peter King to do all he can “to break down the wall of political correctness and drive the public debate on Islamic radicalization.”

To be sure, radicalized American Muslims pose a far greater risk than foreign radicals. For example, it is much easier for the former to get a job in the food industry and poison food — a recently revealed al-Qaeda strategy. American terrorists are also better positioned to exploit the Western mindset. After describing Anwar al-Awlaki as one of the most dangerous terrorists alive, Holder added that he “is a person who — as an American citizen — is familiar with this country and he brings a dimension, because of that American familiarity, that others do not.” (Likewise, American Adam Gadahn is al-Qaeda’s chief propagandist in English no doubt due to his “American familiarity.”)

Sue Myrick, a member of the House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, wrote a particularly candid letter on “radicalization” to President Obama:

For many years we lulled ourselves with the idea that radicalization was not happening inside the United Sates. We believed American Muslims were immune to radicalization because, unlike the European counterparts, they are socially and economically well-integrated into society. There had been warnings that these assumptions were false but we paid them no mind. Today there is no doubt that radicalization is taking place inside America. The strikingly accelerated rate of American Muslims arrested for involvement in terrorist activities since May 2009 makes this fact self-evident.

Myrick named several American Muslims as examples of those who, while “embodying the American dream, at least socio-economically,” still turned to radical Islam, astutely adding, “The truth is that if grievances were the sole cause of terrorism, we would see daily acts by Americans who have lost their jobs and homes in this economic downturn.”

Quite so. Yet, though Myrick’s observations are limited to the domestic scene, they beg the following, even more critical, question: If American Muslims, who enjoy Western benefits — including democracy, liberty, prosperity, and freedom of expression — are still being radicalized, why then do we insist that the importation of those same Western benefits to the Muslim world will eliminate its even more indigenous or authentic form of “radicalization”?

After all, the mainstream position, the only one evoked by politicians, maintains that all American sacrifices in the Muslim world (Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.) will pay off once Muslims discover how wonderful Western ways are, and happily slough off their Islamist veneer, which, as the theory goes, is a product of — you guessed it — a lack of democracy, liberty, prosperity, and freedom of expression. Yet here are American Muslims, immersed in the bounties of the West — and still do they turn to violent jihad. Why think their counterparts, who are born and raised in the Muslim world, where Islam permeates every aspect of life, will respond differently?

In fact, far from eliminating radicalization, there is reason to believe that Western values can actually exacerbate Islamist tendencies. It is already known that Western concessions to Islam — in the guise of multiculturalism, “cultural sensitivity,” political correctness, and self-censorship — only bring out the worst in Islamists. Yet even some of the most prized aspects of Western civilization — personal freedom, rule of law, human dignity—when articulated through an Islamist framework, have the capacity to “radicalize” Muslims.

Consider: the West’s unique stress on the law as supreme arbitrator in Islam becomes a stress to establish Islam’s law — sharia, the supreme arbitrator of human affairs; the West’s unwavering commitment to democracy in Islam becomes an unwavering commitment to theocracy, including an anxious impulse to resurrect the caliphate; Western notions of human dignity and pride, when articulated through an Islamist mindset (which sees fellow Muslims as the ultimate, if not only, representatives of humanity) induces rage when fellow Muslims — Palestinians, Afghanis, Iraqis, etc. — are seen under Western, infidel dominion; Western notions of autonomy and personal freedom have even helped “Westernize” the notion of jihad into an individual duty, though it has traditionally been held by sharia as a communal duty.

Nor should any of this be surprising: a set of noble principles articulated through a fascistic paradigm can lead to abominations. In this case, the better qualities of Western civilization are being devoured, absorbed, and regurgitated into something equally potent, though from the other end of the spectrum. Put differently, just as a stress on human freedom, human dignity, and universal justice produces good humans, rearticulating these same concepts through an Islamist framework that qualifies them with the word “Muslim” — Muslim freedom, Muslim dignity, and Muslim justice — leads to what is being called “radicalization.”

Raymond Ibrahim, a Middle East and Islam specialist, is author of Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians (2013) andThe Al Qaeda Reader (2007). His writings have appeared in a variety of media, including the Los Angeles Times, Washington Times, Jane’s Islamic Affairs Analyst, Middle East Quarterly, World Almanac of Islamism, and Chronicle of Higher Education; he has appeared on MSNBC, Fox News, C-SPAN, PBS, Reuters, Al-Jazeera, NPR, Blaze TV, and CBN. Ibrahim regularly speaks publicly, briefs governmental agencies, provides expert testimony for Islam-related lawsuits, and testifies before Congress. He is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center; Judith Friedman Rosen Writing Fellow, Middle East Forum; and a Media Fellow at the Hoover Institution, 2013. Ibrahim’s dual-background -- born and raised in the U.S. by Coptic Egyptian parents born and raised in the Middle East -- has provided him with unique advantages, from equal fluency in English and Arabic, to an equal understanding of the Western and Middle Eastern mindsets, positioning him to explain the latter to the former.

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1.
Grizzly

It is said that there is no good that cannot be twisted and bent into something evil. It is no surprise that good values, when bent through a Muslim lens, turn into something bad. That is not what most westerners would understand the meaning of the phrase “importation of western values into the Muslim world” to be.

If the author is suggesting that Muslims, or rather the Muslim world at large, is impervious to enlightenment, then that is a sad state of affairs. It may even be true. I wonder what the author sees as the alternative to attempts at promulgating western values without the Muslim debasement. Perhaps total war between the West and the Muslim world, with the likely annihilation of large portions of the planets population?

“If the author is suggesting that Muslims…(are) impervious to enlightenment, then that is a sad state of affairs.

Muslims cannot be enlightened, normalized, or civilized, and still BE muslims.

Ordinary Human Beings, on the other hand, CAN reject violence, hatred, genocidal tendencies, beheading, honor killings and the rest of the Islamic perversions codified by the wretched life of Mohammed…

But then, that would make them CHRISTIANS…
in practice, if not in actual name.

Muslims are Islam, and Islam is pure evil.

No amount of hand-wringing or wishful thinking can change that basic fact.

I’m happy to see that someone is grasping that it is impossible for any Muslim or for Islam to eventually value Western freedoms to the extent that we would see masses of Muslims demonstrating against Sharia law, honor killings, stonings, and taxing the kaffirs. Islam is a political/religious system, from top to bottom. Remove the belligerent, tribalist tenets (if they can be called that) from the doctrine, and there would be nothing left of Islam that could be called Islamic. It would have to be called something else. It would more resemble the Amish or Mennonite creed than the Islam we all fear and hate. Islam and the Western values of individual rights, reason, and capitalism are incompatible and irreconcilable; one may as well make the ludicrous claim that individual rights are possible under communism or Nazism. Islam is a magnet for those who seek an ideology that requires of them conformity, an unquestioning belief in the supernatural, and mindless obedience.

I guarantee it: If Islam ever becomes a political force in America, you can expect to see, for example, French’s Minuteman statue and the statue of Jefferson in the Memorial Rotunda vandalized or destroyed by Muslim “radicals,” and Muslims urinating on copies of the Constitution. Which, incidentally, is what President Obama has already done when he or his ventriloquist dummy, Robert Gibbs, said that Obama will implement Obamacare in defiance of Judge Vinson’s ruling of its unconstitutionality.

It’s no accident that the left has allied itself with Islam, because Islam is likewise totalitarian.

“If American Muslims, who enjoy Western benefits — including democracy, liberty, prosperity, and freedom of expression — are still being radicalized, why then do we insist that the importation of those same Western benefits to the Muslim world will eliminate its even more indigenous or authentic form of “radicalization”?”

We can’t change anything over there. Not where Islam is involved. And that’s a fact. It has been now roughly 30 years since the signing of the Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel. Since then, thousands, perhaps even a few million, of Egyptians have been to the West and have studied here and lived here. You would think in all that time one or two generations of Arabs would have picked up something about Democracy and secular societies and governments. And even some of the more educated Egyptians are still Islamic fanatics. Just look at Mohamed Atta, leader of the 9/11 attack. He was a trained engineer and studied in Germany, yet he was still a religious fanatic and a mass murderer. Aymen al-Zawarhiri, bin Laden’s No. 2 man, is a trained doctor and part of the Muslim Brotherhood, a political/religious organization bent on violence and anti-Semitism. Atta was also a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, as was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, mastermind of 9/11 and brutal murderer of journalist Daniel Pearl. All of these men were highly educated and all of them are homicidal religious fanatics who want to see a theocracy (or caliphate) take over the entire Middle East. So much for years and years and years of exposure to Western civilization, culture, and democracy.

Democracy will never work with arabs. It just won’t. Look what’s happening in Lebanon today. The small democratically elected government there has now been taken over by Hezbollah and Syria, risking yet another major civil war in that tortured country. And even in Iraq, the only reason why Democracy is working there is because of the American Army forcing democracy onto that country. As soon as we leave, Iraq will probably descend into a civil war with the Shias and the Sunnis slaughtering each other yet again.

No, my friends, this is a waste of time. Let the different Muslim religious sects slaughter each other, just like they have been for centuries. We should simply tell them that if they attack Israel or if they attack us ever again, we will rain unbelievable destruction upon them, the same way the Romans warned the Cartheginians to stop starting wars against them. And people should read up on what the Romans DID to the Cartheginians when they did not listen to them and attacked Rome just one too many times. And guess what? The Romans never had any trouble with the Cartheginians ever again. Islamists and arabs have to understand, really understand, that if they kill Americans again like they did on 9/11, they will suffer the same fate as the Cartheginians. Only then will they leave us alone and return to slaughtering their own.

While I agree with what you say, I need to point out that the third Punic war was started by the Romans, and the 1st Punic War was a “Mutual” thing as each power was drawn in by satilite states.

Cato the Elder (Marcus Porcius Cato Maior) would end each speech in the senate with the words, “Furthermore, I believe that Carthage must be destroyed!” The Romans used the Carthaginians invasion of a city south of the Ebro in spain as the “excuse” to start the war. Which is odd since a prior agreement allowed Carthage to continue to advance up to the Ebro. In the end Carthage was destroyed in 146 BC by “Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus Africanus Numantius” (wow what a name) While the second Punic war “Might” be put on the heads of the Carthaginians this is debatable.

Just one point: all these Arabs and other SW Asians who are residing in the US (wherever they were born) are not Americans. Their children will not be Americans. Their great, great, grandchildren will not be Americans. Americans are descended from several NW Europeans peoples who colonized or immigrated to the East Coast of the present-day US before the Civil War. Note well the Mexi-nationalists who proudly point out that their ancestors lived and held land here under Spanish grants before the American Revolution. Exactly, and they are still Mexicans.

America has influenced the Muslim Brotherhood since its inception. What I’m unable to comprehend is why they come here and get pissed off when air travelers have alcohol in their luggage or the FBI is after their sons and daughters for terrorism.

Western Civilization spawning people determined to destroy Western Civilization isn’t anything new, as evidenced by the millions of trust fund babies, celebrities and others who’ve grown up in middle or upper-class lifestyles who somehow believed things would be better if we all lived like they did in the USSR, China or Cuba.

The similarities with the current radical Islamists who are home grown seems to be an ego that demands that everyone else do things their way or else — it’s the spoiled child response, which justifies lashing out at others because they’re all such evil people (capitalists in one case, infidels in the other). The difference is that while the radical leftists of the late 60s and early 70s were perfectly willing to kill other Americans, they had more focused targets because they also cared about their domestic media image. When Bill Ayers & Co. accidentally created that open space on West 10th Street in Manhattan, they were plotting to kill soldiers at Fort Dix; the new generation of Islamic terrorists are far less discerning about who they kill (Major Hassan shot up Fort Hood, but if the opportunity had presented itself, I’m sure he would have been just as satisfied to shoot up the nearby Killeen Mall).

This article is an exact reason to halt any more immigration/Visas to the United States from the Middle East. wAKE uP AmErICA EvIL iS AT OUR DOoR StEp!!

My Tangent:
The screwed up thing is ‘the radical Muslims’ have said time after time after time after time that they want to take over the world and make the world Muslim. Kill the infidels (Americans)? Why are we not listening? Why are we playing ‘nice’ with this promise? – it doesn’t even feel like a threat any more?

One day there is going to be 40 Million of them in the United States and how is Homeland Security going to keep checks and balances on that many Muslims?

Everyday this whole thing is in our face smack in our face and our Government – State, Federal our Politicians, Congress, Senate, Homeland, AMERICAN MUSLIMS – EVERYONE is turning a fing Blind Eye to this BS.

Question:
Anyone ever look at the Rules you have to follow if you decide to ‘visit’ a Middle Eastern Country? Go to the U.S. State Department website for details. Check under Safety and Security for the particular ME Country. Just about everyone of the Safety and Security has ‘Violence’, ‘Terrorists’, Some have ‘insurgents’ ‘attacks against western targets’ Al-Qa’ida, assination, kidnapping, Local Protest uprising could be violence and on and on and on…

Do you ‘think’ when these same people want to visit the United States, our Safety and Security portion reads the same?

No one should ever complain about the United States.

These ME countries (Government) “think” they have “control” in their own country. But it sounds like they are all out of control. It sounds like they are the who’s who of most ‘violent places’ on the planet. Who would want to visit unless they “have to” for business or that nature.

And the little U.S. Liberal Protesters think everyone is going to ‘just play nice’ because the Liberals have ‘heartfelt’ yearnings for “Peace” with their little “Stop the War” & “Peace Signs”. NOT!!

WAKE UP AMERICA EVIL IS ON OUR DOOR STEP!!

I think we should become independent and just pull out of these countries. Do they honestly ‘want us’ there?? For Real?

For those serious about being Muslim, besides the 5 pillars of Islam (Creed, Prayers, Alms-giving, Fast during Ramadan, and Pilgrimage), there are 5 forbidden acts. These are:
1- the eating of unclean food (Pork, including pork products like lard often found in commercial baking and any meat not properly slaughtered.)
2- Alcohol in any form (including in mouth washes and antiseptics, and by extension, any mind-altering drug.)
3- Adultery (and by extension any pornographic material or the viewing of a women’s uncovered arms, legs, as well as private parts unless she is your wife.)
4- The borrowing or lending money at interest – including mortgages, car loans and the use of credit cards.
5- Gambling in any form, including state-sponsored lotteries.
These forbidden things for Muslims are just a good Saturday night for many Westerners, and what transpires at most Western-style hotels and resorts, even in the Middle East. For serious Muslims, it is a constant reminder of the degrading influence of the West on their lifestyle and culture.
Back in the 70′s I had a conversation where I was defending the idea of free speech with a receptionist in Gaza. When I indicated that in America free speech even extended to pornographic speech, he asked why he should want that influence in his culture.
We focus on Sharia as being about the oppression of women, but there are dietary, speech, lifestyle and other restrictions as well. To be a strict Muslim in the US is hard. It often boils down to restricted diet, no popular entertainment, and spending much time at home. It is recognizing most popular culture is antithetical to your beliefs. It is a small wonder that more young persons have not been radicalized.
The irony is that the same left fears that the Christian right / Social-cons would restrict culture readily accepts a multiculturalism that embraces Sharia would be many more times as restrictive as the majority Christian culture of the West has ever been.

Being a strict Muslim in the U.S. is no harder than being a strict Jew. And there are plenty of Orthodox Jews in the U.S. who observe many restrictions in practicing their religion — including not eating pork, shell fish, or milk and meat at the same meal; plus, a range of other restrictions that include not driving or handling money on the Sabbath. Apparently, these Jews find a way to adhere to their religious restrictions without resorting to violence against their neighbors who do not practice their religion. Young Hassidic men do not become radicalized and blow up movie theaters because they aren’t allowed to see movies.

If you want to understand why Muslim Americans become radicalized you’ll have to dig deeper than pointing to five forbidden acts that are “hard” to follow.

>”If you want to understand why Muslim Americans become radicalized you’ll have to dig deeper than pointing to five forbidden acts that are “hard” to follow.”<

It's all in the Quran. Muslims have to follow Quran and it's diktats. Simple!! All violence and the so called "radicalization" comes from following Quran. For Muslims it is not radicalization or anything else. For them they are doing what Mo/allah orders them to do!! As they say – it's the religion…!

Muslims have an inferiority complex when it comes to the great achievements of Western civilization and radicalism is how they express their feelings of inferiority. If they can’t achieve civilizational equality with the West then they will seek to tear us down. Deep down they know that Islamic culture and Islam itself are inferior and they feel powerless to change it so instead of trying, they lash out. Obviously I do not believe in cultural relativism.

I think you’re onto something. Maybe we could remedy this by having NASA devote more of its resources to Muslim outreach? Maybe thank them for being able to regurgitate Ancient Greek knowledge in the medieval era, as if it was their own?

American values radicalize Muslims – what a humbug proposal!!! Muslims don’t need anything for radicalization. they have got Mo/allah’s Quran to radicalize them!!! If this hate manual is not enough to radicalize them then I don’t know what else could incite them. Instilling of these hate teachings from the age of five or six would convert anybody from a normal human being to a demon!!

American values do radicalize Muslims. Like anything else. Everything becomes an excuse. The religion of Eternal Outrage. It is correct to say that they have “Mo/allah’s Quran to radicalize them.” Everything else is just an excuse, a pretext.

Reminds me of the history, much before America existed, the excuse for invading Zoroastrian Persia was that its King refused to convert to Islam.

Raymond gives one aspect of the argument, how positive Western values are responded to by Muslims; there is also the other side. As a Christian, I know that I am in this world but not of it; I can appreciate Western culture while passing on the decadence that is also present: the sexual immorality, the casual acceptance of perversion, the worship of Gaea and environmentalism at the expense of humanity . As Jonah Goldberg pointed out in “Liberal Fascism”, and Gene Veith in “Modern Fascism: The Threat to the Judeo-Christian Worldview” (both of which I highly recommend), while we consider ourselves “modern,” the rest of the world reacts quite negatively to the liberal worldview, seeing it as a deliberate attack on their values and even their families.

Thoughtful and interesting, but leaves me wondering what we can or ought to do.

It’s certainly true that “a set of noble principles articulated through a fascistic paradigm can lead to abominations”; Communists enjoy quoting Jesus’ admonitions, yet invariably their supposed quest to help the poor and downtrodden leads to the gulag and the mass grave.

Notice the basic axioms which you have to accept in order to accept this author’s opinion –
Notice, the author claims that “far from eliminating radicalization, there is reason to believe that Western values can actually exacerbate Islamist tendencies. It is already known that Western concessions to Islam — in the guise of multiculturalism, “cultural sensitivity,” political correctness, and self-censorship — only bring out the worst in Islamists. Yet even some of the most prized aspects of Western civilization — personal freedom, rule of law, human dignity—when articulated through an Islamist framework, have the capacity to “radicalize” Muslims.”

But, multiculturalism, political correctness etc – are not ‘western values of democracy’ for a basic democratic value is equality and multiculturalism rejects equality; it instead, prevents the immigrant from being treated and feeling, equal.

These so-called western values isolate immigrants and set up a perspective that their old home cultures, beliefs and behaviour, are pristine, pure in their original integrity inviolate, and must be preserved. This treatment of people as artifactual representatives of an anthropological ‘other’ culture means that the individual is isolated from participation – as an individual – in the new nation. He can only ‘represent his ethnic or religious identity’; he can’t be ‘American’; he’s an ‘African-American and must represent only them; he’s Muslim and must represent only them – and ‘them’ as defined in specific, inviolate, non-adaptive criteria.

Isolation of individuals and locking them into closed ethnic and religious identities removes them from participation in reality; they become participants only in the ‘imaginary world’ of that detached rhetoric – which is what radicalization is all about.

This is exactly what this author has done; he insists that the individual is locked into an anthropological identity, and the identity is somehow authoritative to the experience of reality. So – to this author, no Muslim, in his own country, could set up a political system that enabled free speech, individual political powers in democracy etc – Nor could a Muslim set up a middle class economy that rejected the authoritarianism of tribal dictatorships..because, this author declares that Islam is a tribal artifact and does not allow its members to live in the real world. Only in the ‘textual world’.

The author is, himself, insisting that the beliefs and behavior of a people are removed from reality and are strictly intellectual and ideological. So – even if the economy requires a middle class engaged in private industrial devt – this author says that IF you are Muslim, you cannot have such a freedom. This puts ideology first and reality second.

I beg to differ. The real situations of the world trump beliefs any and every day.
There is no reason to accept that a people cannot change their beliefs and behaviour. The Western world moved itself out of an ideological set of beliefs and behaviour that also rejected individual freedom, the individual use of reason, rejected its own tribalism (feudalism), enabled a middle class and so on.

Again, reality trumps the imaginary world – every time, and the Muslim peoples can, as did we, accept this.

Many Islamists, especially in Europe, deliberately shun integration into the larger society around them.

They’re not there for “integration”, they’re there for (eventual) domination.

Merkel and now Cameron giving speeches that “multiculturalism” has failed is like locking the barn door after the horses have escaped, trying to play catch up, like Cameron suggesting that Muslims in Britain be required to take English and learn English history.

No – they aren’t there for domination; they are there, because there are no economic possibilities in their home country – and so, they come to the West – where they are not integrated, are enabled and encouraged to be isolated and ideologically frozen, maintained on welfare – which means they are parasitic rather than producers in the economy.

We, the host country, have to reject this infrastructure of multiculturalism and insist on integration. Australia, for example, has an oligatory Australian Values VISA form, which all entrants, both on visas and as immigrants, must sign.

•Australian society values respect for the freedom and dignity of the individual, freedom of religion, commitment to the rule of law, Parliamentary democracy, equality of men and women and a spirit of egalitarianism that embraces mutual respect, tolerance, fair play and compassion for those in need and pursuit of the public good
•Australian society values equality of opportunity for individuals, regardless of their race, religion or ethnic background
•the English language, as the national language, is an important unifying element of Australian society.
I undertake to respect these values of Australian society during my stay in Australia and to obey the laws of Australia”

We need this form everywhere in the West and we need to reject multiculturalism. As nomdeblog points out – people are equal but ‘cultures are not’…and we should not permit these different belief and behavior systems to take precedence to ours in our own nation.

Muslims of an earlier era integrated quite well into Europe and have lived there, with supporting mosques, for a very long time.

Many Muslims came to Germany simply to work. But they haven’t integrated and they haven’t gone home when the work dried up, as Angela Merkel might have wished.

The newer crowd of immigrants has a newer agenda. You’ve seen those signs in the streets of London during Islamist demonstrations about what needs to be done to the infidel/westerner ? Or considered the European country with the largest Muslim population of Europe, France, and, now the 751 “no go” zones around French cities?

Acknowledging that “the French” haven’t gone out of their way to smooth the way for these individuals, it remains that one of the major components of “soft” jihad is sabotaging the unbeliever from within, through immigrating to his countries. (also happening in Canada & Australia) The radical imam in Copenhagen intentionally used the cartoons to stir up the faithful throughout the middle & far east.

One of the biggest components of accomplishing soft jihad is simple procreation, which the Muslims are doing at a rather prodigious rate in Europe and the native populations (esp. France and Italy) have almost stopped doing altogether(ok, slight exaggeration).

yes ..most muslim immigrants don’t come to other countries explicitly fomenting jihad (obviously some do) but once in a new country they are easy prey for the likes of the muslim brotherhood ..the consummate community organizers.

the muslims also have a history of victimhood which also makes them easily radicalized. again an easy target to apply community organizing techniques to.

not unlike welfare brats their offspring are prime jihadist material.

ETAB ..I still can’t figure out your angle on this. not all peoples think alike and middle east upbringing is not freedom or democratically biased. in fact very much the other way round. they respect strength not justice.

ETAB – Excellent Comment. Since we have an Consulate down under. Wouldn’t someone (Our US people)have picked up on the language on the Australian Values VISA form ? Would they not have sent ‘the usage suggestion home’ already? Maybe it has been ignored like so many other potential problems…

“If American Muslims, who enjoy Western benefits — including democracy, liberty, prosperity, and freedom of expression — are still being radicalized, why then do we insist that the importation of those same Western benefits to the Muslim world will eliminate its even more indigenous or authentic form of ‘radicalization’?”

And conversely, why do we allow more importation of this perverse mindset via continued Muslim immigration? When will it finally become obvious to those in power in this country that a minimum first step to deal with such an existential threat is to immediately stop all Muslim immigration?

Attorney General Eric Holder states that “the threat has changed … to worrying about people in the United States, American citizens — raised here, born here, and who for whatever reason, have decided that they are going to become radicalized and take up arms against the nation in which they were born.”

Is Eric describing himself, in this nation of “cowards” ? This nation where the Attorney General of the United States applies the law as a function of his own and his department’s personal bias and inclinations?

Likewise, American Adam Gadahn is al-Qaeda’s chief propagandist in English no doubt due to his “American familiarity.”

Likely the radical crowd Adam joined has figured out he’s not too bright or even useful, beyond his English language skills.

We believed American Muslims were immune to radicalization because, unlike the European counterparts, they are socially and economically well-integrated into society.

Really, Sue ? You believed that ?

A radicalized fundamentalist is a radicalized fundamentalist, it doesn’t necessarily matter how wealthy or well-integrated he may appear to be.* If he’s young & falls under the tutelage & sway of one of the highly convincing radical imams scattered throughout America, it doesn’t matter what his background/family in America might be.

(*M. Atta was from a wealthy Cairo family and the other 911 head honchos from prominent, well off families.)

…why then do we insist that the importation of those same Western benefits to the Muslim world will eliminate its even more indigenous or authentic form of “radicalization”?

After all, the mainstream position, the only one evoked by politicians, maintains that all American sacrifices in the Muslim world (Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.) will pay off once Muslims discover how wonderful Western ways are, and happily slough off their Islamist veneer, which, as the theory goes, is a product of — you guessed it — a lack of democracy…

Even dumber.

Don’t these people read Islamic literature, fatwas et al. and etc. ? All the literature & pronouncements infused with contempt for so called democracy and contempt for so called western “values” ?

(We can’t bring or impose “democracy”, despite the yearnings of the human soul to be free.)

We’re gonna keep fiddling with the verbiage until Rome burns down ?(a guy named Leiter, articulate enough, testifying yesterday that our New Mexico born “terrorist” al-Awlaki may now be a bigger threat than bin Laden. The Senate committee needed to be told that ?)

Hm, so once again “Rome” instigates a “reformation,” only now it’s American Muslims instead of European Protestants, led by Washington D.C instead of Rome, Italy. Karma is a B—. Given that the earth is getting smaller for a multitude of reasons, “live and let live” may not be pragmatically possible with a culture sporting divine imperial pretensions.

ETAB “But, multiculturalism, political correctness etc – are not ‘western values of democracy’ for a basic democratic value is equality and multiculturalism rejects equality; it instead, prevents the immigrant from being treated and feeling, equal.”

A suggested clarification would be that multiculturalism actually embraces equality….of cultures.

That’s where the cultural relativists sometimes trip us up with their race baiting political correctness.

We need to be saying people are equal but cultures are not equal. Cultures are adaptations to local ecologies and populations that have derived a suitable economy for a region. A culture in an igloo can’t work in the jungle, they can’t be equal. But people can be equal before the law and women equal to men. But not cultures, they are not equal; in fact some should just die out and many would if not artificially propped up by outside forces like oil funding.

Yes, you are exactly right. People are equal but cultures, belief and behavioral systems – are NOT equal.

And we should stop treating these different belief/behavioral systems as if they were somehow detached mindsets, floating in the air…unrelated to their own origins. As nomdeblog points out, a society’s belief and behavioral systems are direct adaptations to a particular economic mode of life – and that is, itself, a direct adaptation to the ecology of the geographic area.

If your economy subsists on, for example, the herding of animals and the men must be gone for weeks at a time taking them to fresh pasture, then, the belief system will set it up so that the women, who stay behind with the children, must be viewed as ‘to be kept hidden in their tents’ so that unmarried men can’t sneak up on them.

If your economy subsists on hereditary owned lands and farming, then, it is quite possible that your belief system sets up a hereditary male inheritance where the land passes to ONE person, the eldest son, so that it isn’t split up into smaller, economically dysfunctional, plots of land among all the descendants.

When the economy changes – then, these belief systems must change. So, our multicultural rule of freeze-drying all these beliefs and almost insisting that people retain them – is our own folly.

Per Bill B, defending the First Amendment is an attempt by westerners to define the freedom of society but Islamists measure it as a true insult against God. There is no freedom of religion in fundamentalist Islam. Obviously, we are going to have to come to a decision point on this and I have a pretty firm feeling that Americans are NOT going to give up on our Constitution in order to make Muslims feel welcome. Does anybody believe that Muslims are going to give up on Sharia to make us feel welcome? So there’s going to be a fight. They’re fighting one at a time. We’re watching and becoming disturbed. I guess a Mombai in Kansas City is inevitable and then we’ll decide we should talk about it. I wonder why it is so hard to instill in our youth a desire to believe in, support, and fight for freedom? Every man is equal, especially the enemy.

I am an instuctor at an English language school. Many of the students are from Saudi Arabia. They are mostly in their late teens to around 30. They are wonderful kids, and are well liked. I often wonder when they leave the school and are exposed to the begging youth, the foul mouthed tatooed, body pierced youth,the alcoholics and drug addicts and porn shops outside the school what do they think.How many will turn to the madness of radical Islam? Why is it that our freedoms have allowed our culture to sink to the lowest common denominator?

As far as I’m concerned, Muslims who cannot live with and accept American values should remain in or go back to their Muslim states. There should be no question of us adopting Sharia law or such concepts as killing for family reputation. Any attempts to build mosques in historic sites should be rebuffed without question. Americans, such as mayor Bloomberg should stay out of such issues or go to jail.

I’m skeptical about Holder referring to muslims of anykind when talking about sources of threats of violence within our borders. (after all, it is the religion of peace.) I’d find it much easier to believe he was referring to tea party patriots who support the constitution. If he really was referring to the former – and I will *not* believe in his sincerity until I see some significant follow through in actions – it may put him in a conundrum of how to deal with the muslim tyrant supporter/wannabe who pulls his stsrings.

FWIW, it is simplistic to reduce the neocon idea to the notion of “give them democracy and they will stop being radicalized”. That’s to set up a naive straw man. Rather, the neocon idea develops from consideration of whether, in the long run, Muslims (or the rest of us) will likely have any choice between either more liberalized societies, or death. Many people think we can somehow quarantine the Muslim world and leave it to its ways; but I have seen no coherent account of how this can happen – in this day and age of universal dependence on a now single global economy, technology, and science – without mass death among those walled off. If you separate a large proportion of humanity from the rest of us, must you not then watch it choose between internal violence and slaughter of sects and tribes and/or internal “unity” organized as a mass resentment of those outside the walls, a resentment that is sure to seek ways to hurt us; and when we respond with violence to their inevitable attacks will they just “learn their lesson” and quiet down in isolation from the global economy and its resources; or will they pick themselves up from the rubble and more fanatically continue to seek internal order through bonding against the infidel? In other words, won’t any attempt to quarantine lead the situation to escalate to the point where we become more willing to consider genocide, the very idea that already leads in the West to a suicidal white guilt (a suicide, a moral and cultural relativism, that suggests further disintegration and violence down the road).

It is in face of such fears, in the intuition that Muslims must ultimately choose between a culture that respects individual freedom and rights, as a basis for participation in the global economy and political order, or a rather terminal violence, that some assume the choice will eventually have to be for “democracy”, howevermuch the present resistance in the Islamic world to our ideas of individual liberty. It is thus impatient to argue about whether Muslims are ready now for “democracy”, not having yet had to face more clearly the choice betweeen death or our way of life. Absent the pushing of that choice (freedom or death) through truly unavoidable wars against enemies who want to hurt us, any speculation on what Muslims really want, or whether or not the neocon idea has been proven false, is sheer speculation.

Once the Muslims world chooses to establish the caliphate (from the Muslim Brotherhood’s charter) and fight, then the West has a choice. Submit to dhiminitude and Sharia law, or, realize it’s them or us in a fight to the death and act accordingly.

Subjects of Islam need no incentive other than their continued indoctrination from birth and a thoroughly edited guide book called the Quo’ran.
In spite of its tangled history Islamic scholar, Abul Ala Maududi, contends that the Book has been handed down to our age in its complete and original form since the time of Prophet Mohammad. In reality it was thoroughly revised from the Syriac symbol based trader language of Mecca using conflicting symbols with multiple meanings and only seventeen consonants based on Christian liturgical texts.
Caliph Uthman of Mecca ordered that all circulating copies of available script be brought to him and compiled into a standard version for circulation thereby establishing the first caliphate with its attached scholars. Forced translation into the emerging classic Arabic language and rearrangement of chronology by sura length produced seven different translations.
He then ordered that six be burned along with all known associated script including those promised to be returned to Mohammad’s fifth wife in Medina. The convenient excuse for the burning was that different readings were the cause of Muslims fighting amongst themselves over different versions.(Book 61 no.510) thereby creating the root of a royal based code and guaranty of the internal strife that exists throughout their fields of conquest.
Other than tenets adopted from the Torah and Mohammad’s methods of conquest using theft of any existing infidel wealth backed by the promise of peace that always evolves into parasitic intimidation and conquest, nothing original exists. Their sword of conquest continues to be intimidation when their population reaches 5% in any particular geographical locality.
Can you concede that selective burning in 650 may be the single most effective act contributing to the Quo’ran’s “holiness” in thirteen centuries? Or would you dare to assume that it was edited into fact based fiction for the purpose of protecting the elite while held high as the unquestionable shield of Islam?

Islam is NOT a religion, it is a political movement with an agenda.
The goal: to return to the good old days of the Ottoman Empire, but
This time The empire will spread to the USA.
Leniency is interpreted as weakness.
How do the US citizens suppose to understand the silence of the integrated Muslim communities, when A protest needed following a
terror act?
How about integrating some western world into Islamic countries?

Muslims are terrorists because “Allah’s Apostle Muhammed said ‘I have been made victorious with terror’” – Bukhari (52:220)

Muslims were ‘radicalized’ for centuries, before there was an America, before evil American values we forced upon the world, before the repulsive Brittney Spears and Emenim, and before American hamburger culinary imperialism.

Muslims are ‘radicalized’ because Muhammed was ‘radicalized’. It’s that simple.

Boo Ho, so we make the muslims angry because our life style. Well I am not frankly impressed with the muslim intolerance of other people and their faith. You know even GOD gives us a chance to live our lives like we choose, not so with the muslims. You have to listen to what some old geezer says and interprets the quran. I guess we should treat muslims like they treat others, cut their d-m muslim heads off , problem over except for you PC idiots!

I was reading about the Islamic afterlife a while ago. Heaven in Islam can be summed up as a paradise of wine, women & song. All the things forbidden to Muslims in life are theirs in heaven if they obey Allah. For Muslims living in the West it must be galling (to say the least) to see the inferior infidels (according to the Koran)living in what must seem to be an Islamic heaven. Muslims rage about the decadence of the West but what they are really angry about IMO is that Westerners are enjoying what they cannot enjoy until they die. Normal thinking people would question their beliefs if confronted with that situation but Muslims don’t because their identity as a Muslim is the most important thing to them. If they leave Islam they risk being killed, at best they would be ostracised by everyone they knew. Leaving Islam is like leaving a cult.

There are no shared values between Islam and the West because for Muslims a fellow Muslim will ALWAYS come before an infidel. The Koran instructs them to not befriend infidels.

We the US do not need to make the islamic terrorist mad. They just state that idea because it gets them more air time on TV. They can not even get along with each other. Islamic terrorist like the Palestinians, hezbollah, and hamas are killuing each other. It would be wise for the US to bring home its troops from the middle east and get rid of the muslims in this country.If not we will fight them in our own streets someday! Islam is not a religion it is a form of governing with strict control for a very few!

The Muslims seem quite content with selected portions of our lifestyle. They use phones, TV, cars, decent housing, radio, computers and so much more. I think a lot of their rage is because they know, even without admitting, that such devices could not have come from their 5th century culture. They rage over the fact that Western thought has created all this and more.